Derbyshire leader joins call for PM to allow councils to decide on housing illegal immigrants

Pictured Is Reform Uk Derbyshire County Councillor And Council Leader Alan Graves, Taken By LDR Jon Cooper

Derbyshire County Council’s Leader has backed a call from Reform UK’s Home Affairs spokesperson to the new Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham for councils and communities to be granted the power to decide to stop housing illegal immigrants in their own areas.

Reform UK County Council Leader, Cllr Alan Graves, has co-signed Reform UK’s Home Affairs spokesperson Zia Yusuf’s letter to Andy Burnham with 23 other council leaders in light of the new Prime Minister’s desire to move centralised power into places across the UK where he feels it can be best used.

Cllr Graves, of Reform UK-controlled Derbyshire County Council, said: “Reform UK in Derbyshire has been clear that decisions about housing asylum seekers in our communities should involve local people, not be imposed by the Home Office and its contractors with no consultation.

“That’s why I co-signed this letter, and why we continue to press Government for genuine devolved decision-making on this issue.”

Mr Yusuf’s letter calls on the Prime Minister to ‘make good’ on his promise to devolve decision-making to communities by allowing them to reject what the Reform UK Home Affairs spokesperson claims is the resettlement of small boat arrivals by the Labour Government’s Home Office and its contractors.

He argues that the Home Office ‘has kept local people out of decision-making whilst outsourcing those choices to private companies like Serco, which reap rich rewards from their destruction of our homes’.

The Reform UK Home Affairs spokesperson, Mr Yusuf, states that towns and cities across the UK ‘have been left defenceless as a cosy cabal of Westminster elites has opened the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of unvetted, fighting age men’.

He says in the letter: “In the early months of this year, I toured the country during Reform UK’s local elections campaign. I heard from thousands of voters, who spoke with one voice of their frustration at their powerlessness to make the single most important decision about their own communities: the decision about who gets to be part of them.”

Mr Yusuf confirmed that leaders at 24 councils, representing what he says amounts to over 8.5 million residents across the country, have signed the letter including Derbyshire County Council, Nottinghamshire County Council and Leicestershire County Council.

He told the Prime Minister: “I and the attached signatories are calling on you to make good on your promise to hand control back to local people, and to fully devolve the power to stop the housing of illegal migrants in local communities by the Home Office and its contractors.”

Mr Yusuf signed the letter with the adopted title of Reform UK ‘Shadow Home Secretary’ despite the UK Parliament website listing Conservative MP Chris Philp as the Shadow Home Secretary under the Shadow Cabinet of His Majesty’s Official Opposition.

Reform UK-led Derbyshire County Council’s Deputy Leader, Cllr Stephen Reed, has also previously stated that UK citizens should be prioritised over illegal immigrants.

He has argued that there have been people coming across to the UK being prioritised ahead of British citizens and that he believes the public feels betrayed.

Cllr Reed has also claimed that once asylum seekers have been granted status local authorities have to deal with them as homeless and he claims they can be prioritised for housing.

Protesters opposed to immigration and those sympathetic to asylum seekers turned out in force in September and November, last year, outside the Sandpiper Hotel, on Sheffield Road, in Chesterfield, which has been converted into an asylum seeker hotel although, according to Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins, current numbers using the site are understood to have reduced.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “The concerns of communities are central to our immigration reforms which is why we are working with local authorities and others to fairly disperse asylum seekers across basic accommodation including ex-military sites. Five military sites are either in use or being explored to house asylum seekers.

“We are seeing results. Asylum seekers in hotels are down 35per cent in the last year and down 63per cent from the peak of 56,000 in September 2023.

“We have returned or deported almost 70,000 people who were here illegally and are going further to remove the incentives that draw illegal migrants to this country.”

The Home Office stated that the safety of local communities is central to its immigration reforms which is why asylum seekers are routinely screened against policing, criminality, and immigration databases before they are permitted to move into sites.

It claims it is working to fairly disperse asylum seekers across the country while engaging with local authorities, council leaders and key delivery partners and that five former military sites are being explored to house asylum seekers.

The Home Office added that overall asylum costs have already fallen by £1 billion since this Government was elected.

It also stated that it has clarified criteria for sites specifically avoiding factors which are known to potentially increase social tensions.

The Home Office added that before July 2024, there were 400 hotels in use at a cost of £9 million a day but now just under 200 remain in use.

Mr Yusuf’s letter was signed by leaders from the following councils: Derbyshire County Council; Rochford District Council; East Sussex County Council; Durham County Council; Sunderland Council; Leicestershire County Council; Calderdale Council; Walsall Council; Warwickshire County Council; St Helens Borough Council; Wakefield Council; Kent County Council; Staffordshire County Council; West Northamptonshire Council; North Northamptonshire Council; Nottinghamshire County Council; Gateshead Council; Cannock Chase District Council; South Tyneside Council; Thurrock Borough Council; Kirklees Council; Lincolnshire County Council; Lancashire County Council; And Barnsley Council.